Summary:

Scientists at Mass General Brigham made FaceAge, an AI to assess age based on pictures, as well as survival rates for cancer patients. When over 6,000 individuals were measured, cancer patients had FaceAges nearly five years older than their real age, linked to higher odds of death. In palliative care, the tool showed much better skill in making life expectancy projections than clinicians.

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Revolutionizing Cancer Prognosis with Facial Recognition AI

Can your face communicate anything other than your age? Mass General Brigham researchers found that the answer is yes and could have a big impact on cancer care.
Researchers have made Face Age, a tool that helps estimate a person’s biological age from their face, both age from appearance, rather than the number of years they have lived. Typical assessments look at age, yet Face Age can reveal a patient’s health and chances of survival, which is particularly valuable to those combating cancer.
The five-year age discrepancy was seen by AI in 6,196 people with cancer. Importantly, those with a higher FaceAge had a worse survival rate, no matter what type of cancer they had.

Why Face Age Matters in Clinical Settings

When speaking to patients, doctors are already analysing their well-being by judging their pallor, strength, or overall signs of fatigue. However, such evaluations could be influenced by hidden biases in the evaluators. The system uses AI that has learned from a database of more than 58,000 photos of healthy people.
During the study, Face Age was more accurate than clinicians at guessing the short-term survival of patients receiving palliative radiotherapy. Making a random guess was slightly more accurate than doctors’ decisions when they knew either the age or the patient’s health history. It was Face Age data that greatly refined the predictions they made.

Looking Beyond Cancer

Face Age’s biggest asset is its potential, together with how well it works. The research group is analysing whether this AI tool can help understand an individual’s general health, identify chronic diseases, and watch developments in lifespan.
It has also been tied to the genetic markers that track aging, which means Face Age could be revealing real cellular aging.

Future Applications and Ethical Considerations

What sets it apart is its brilliant potential, as well as its outstanding results. The researchers are studying if this AI tool can estimate overall health, help find chronic diseases early, and track the expected length of life.
Research has found a tie between Face Age and cellular aging, so it can’t only judge looks — it might actually track true age markers.
Before Face Age is ready for clinical use, it must be tested on a wider range of people. Researchers are assessing the device’s ability to identify changes from either cosmetic makeup or plastic surgery.
Yet, these findings have important results. Picture using selfies as an easy and cheap way for doctors to diagnose and treat both cancer and diseases common among older adults early on.
With chronic diseases seen as problems of aging, it is now even more important to be able to correctly determine a person’s aging path, says Dr. Mak.
Improvements in healthcare might come down to one picture analysed by an AI, the outcome read through data and the results employed to make life-saving judgments.
Source: Neurosciencenews